Rebellion
by That Hedgie Over There
Summary: In this re-imagining of Sonic Forces, both Sonic and Shadow have been captured, Tails and Rouge have gone AWOL, most of the rebellion's allies have been turned into robots, and Eggman has unleashed a weapon of mass destruction said to hold truly unlimited power. Their last hope lies in the hands of a certain newcomer, who happens to know a dark secret about the enemy wielding it...
1. Crawling

_Working title: "My Infatuation with Incorporating a Video Game Within a Video Game Within a Fanfiction Has Led Me to Create This More Than Five Years Later"_

* * *

"Hey, you! I know you can hear me! You're captain of Squad Jackal, aren't you?!"

A dark figure swiftly navigated the similarly dark landscape, hopping across several tilted pillars as if possessing alarming skills as a ninja. Clearly this was business as usual for the figure, his hair brushed behind him as he traversed the precariously narrow stone platforms like a ninja warrior plowing through a four-stage obstacle course on a remote mountain in Japan.

It was a routine assignment: stop the one raiding their base in the Mystic Jungle. He and his band of mercenaries had scattered the area, their aggressive approach to bringing the intruder to justice. There was no time for, or sense in, questioning motives. Besides, they had their target outnumbered. It would have taken an uncanny abundance of swift moves, fight skills, and intuition on the intruder's part to evade them.

I spoke too soon, didn't I?

"Your squad was useless!" an agitated voice spat through the figure's wireless communication device. "Go clean up their mess already!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm on it..." Just hearing the seemingly endless round of shouting was enough to give him a headache. It didn't matter very much, for he had located his target: a black hedgehog — no, _the_ black hedgehog. The one said to have uncanny abilities with a set of emeralds that weren't really emeralds. The one who worked for the government — the same government he had every right to begrudge.

The one known simply as Shadow. No problem.

"You destroyed my squad..." he said more or less to himself, with a tone so deep that his target could never have heard him even if he had used a megaphone. Also, even if the rest of his squad had failed so badly to subdue the trespasser, he was sure they weren't actually dead. As dark as the hedgehog's nature seemed, he would surely have reserved his destructive ways for the robots. There would not be blood. Just lots and lots of shorted circuits.

The rest of his squad didn't matter at this point either. The mercenary had the hedgehog right where he wanted him.

"I'll show you why they call me the ultimate mercenary..."

Without further hesitation, the figure bolted towards the unsuspecting hedgehog, who appeared to pay no mind to having a target on his back, his empty gaze fixated nowhere in particular. As he got close enough, the attacker wound up his dominant right hand for a hard uppercut and waited until he was right in front of his target to unleash it. Suddenly, the hedgehog vanished into thin air, because he can suddenly do that now, catching the mysterious figure off guard enough to make him stumble after totally whiffing his punch, allowing the hedgehog to reappear within striking distance and land a punch of his own on the now helpless attacker. Having thus turned the tables, the hedgehog continued to relentlessly beat up on the assailant, teleporting over and over to wherever he was and striking him repeatedly, culminating in a roundhouse kick that sent the perp flying backwards and crashing into a wall, briefly knocking the wind out of him.

Seeing that he had confidently neutralized the only threat within a ten-meter radius, the hedgehog shuffled towards his would-be attacker in a cat-and-mouse-like manner. The figure was clearly reeling now as he helplessly shook in fear, his marked set of differently-colored eyes barely visible as he waited for his vision to somehow uncloud itself, his favored left hand guarding his sharp white muzzle, his collar threatening to come loose, his distinct dreadlocks a frenzied mess, his tail halfway crooked as if broken. An unsightly appearance to behold for sure. Shadow recognized him as the commander of the Jackal Squad, but what did he care? He had already disposed of an unspeakable number of Mobian jackals up to this point, and if this one was wise, this would be the last time they would meet.

"If I ever see your pathetic face again... you're going straight to hell!"

This unfinished business taken care of, the hedgehog turned away, fixing his gaze at an open area, and vanished for good. Soon thereafter, the stupefied mercenary, still shaken up from the beating he had just taken, finally came to his senses and glanced out in the open. Seeing no potential threat around him, he jumped onto his feet and proceeded forward a few paces, striking a half-menacing, half-exhausted pose at a point approximate to where the hedgehog had struck him to send him flying back into the wall behind him.

There was no need to wait. The intruder had already fled the place.

"You..." he was breathing heavily now, "you hit like a bitch..."

He tried to dig up a handful of dirt below him, but failed. Nonetheless, he held up a clenched fist before letting it drop just as quickly.

"Show yourself at once...!"

A slight sigh of relief overtook this jackal when nobody answered him, for he himself was aware that he was barely standing up straight as he had called out for the onyx-furred assailant.

The communication device on his wrist vibrated twice. "Hey you! Have you caught Shadow yet?!" It was the snarky voice from before blaring through to him, sounding more agitated than ever.

"He got away, Doctor," the jackal sighed, the empty tone in his voice telling of humiliation. "What happened to the rest of my squad?"

"What?!" the annoying voice laughed. "What kind of a question is that?!"

"I'm just curious," he raised his voice higher and higher as his device was spewing more and more attempts to interrupt from the other end of the call, "I'm not getting any response from the other squad members after I... came into contact with... _him_..."

"Oh never mind that! Just meet me back in my base at once! I have something very important to show you..."

The jackal growled in disgust. "Give me a minute, will ya?"

* * *

"Let's have it, Doctor. What's this big important thing you want to show me and why should I care to know, anyway?"

"I'm very glad you asked, my little jackal friend!" It was the cheesy male voice from before, coming from the center of the room, sitting there a luxury swivel chair fit for a king — or, evil scientist with a knack for imprisoning woodland creatures whose IQ happened to be supposedly greater than his weight. The chair magically swiveled around in the style of Dr. Evil to reveal said scientist, astonishingly round from the torso up, sporting metallic goggles, a crimson metallic jacket, round sunglasses, and a trademark handlebar mustache.

The one known only as Dr. Eggman.

"My my, you look weak. What happened to you?!"

"Don't call me that again," the jackal sighed angrily. "You of all people should know exactly what happened — I picked a fight with a godmodder."

"Now hold up just a minute. What's a godmodder?"

"I don't know!" the jackal suddenly yelled in a frenzy. "Now where are the other squad members?!"

"Listen here, jackal..." Eggman interrupted in a menacing tone before presenting to him a peculiar, triangular prism-shaped stone glowing blood red that emitted a strange, similarly-colored mist. "It's finally good to go."

"It's a stone, Doctor," the jackal muttered, lightly shaking his head. "You didn't make it," knowing, of course, that Dr. Eggman had indeed made it, since stones weren't known for making inter-dimensional noises. "Any particular reason why you didn't let me wield it ten minutes ago? It might have come in real handy going up against that... _gutless_ intruder..." The jackal snarled at the mention of Shadow.

"It wasn't ready yet. You know how I was building an assload of prototypes in order to recreate it?" The jackal rolled his contrasting-colored eyes, no longer caring to listen to another one of Eggman's stereotypical monologues. "Well, a good chunk of them were defective. They could only record the DNA of the one who triggered them..."

"Give me the Phantom Ruby," the mercenary growled. "Whatever that hedgehog was doing in our base, I intend to hunt him down. He's going to pay big time..."

The mad scientist thought for a moment, calling upon his uncanny ability to read into his minions... assuming, of course, that he had such an ability.

"I mean, he's gone now," the doctor finally countered, shrugging. "Who knows where he could be at this point?"

The jackal was now boiling with a passion. "You let the rest of my squad go to waste, and now you're going to sit on your butt while the hedgehog gets away?! I will not stand for this!" He unsheathed his katana, directing it towards the mustachioed doctor. "Give me the Phantom Ruby at once!"

"Look, dude," as if making an effort to get the jackal to chill his ass out, "you're making a big mistake."

The instant he had said these words, the jackal charged at him, lunging his sword out as far as he could.

"Take _this_!"

It would be the last time he ever shouted these words.

Grasping the completed ruby in his weaker right hand, the fat man calmly waved several fingers on his other hand towards the unsuspecting mercenary, immobilizing him and causing his sword to fall flat on the metallic floor, his grimaced face from his failed attack also frozen solid. The jackal was now floating in mid-air — well, more like Eggman was keeping him afloat for his own entertainment. Then, spotting an abandoned capsule a few paces to the side, its glass door wide open, he gestured his controlling left hand towards the pod, causing his target to float swiftly in that direction, until he was right in front of it. Then the doctor made several more obscure hand movements until the paralyzed floating figure was completely within the capsule. Keeping firm control of his target, he jumped out of his throne and casually shuffled towards the open pod, eyeing the fazed mercenary fiercely. Finally he went off on his little jackal friend.

 _You think this is just a game  
_ _I intend to make known my name  
_ _No matter what stands in my way  
_ _No matter the price I must pay  
_ _This is the world we live in  
_ _I'll do whatever it takes to win  
_ _I'll use anything from wit to trickery  
_ _When I'm through, Sonic will be history!_

"Woah..." the doctor interjected, surprised by his own sudden freestyle, "I don't know where that came from..."

"So, you want the Phantom Ruby, I see..."

Eggman was casually tossing the peculiar glowing gem softly into the air as he continued his monologuing charade. At least he actually caught it every single time.

"Well, fine... you can have it..."

The evil scientist dug into a random pocket somewhere on his metallic coat and pulled out a slightly larger gem, this one glowing brighter than the one he had just used. The original Phantom Ruby.

"But that's ok, because I'll make sure you don't step out of line..."

Snickering a little, he held the smaller, experimental gem up to his experiment's bust. It stuck there like a magnet.

Soon enough, he would ensure it was there to stay.


	2. Faint

**"This is E-123 Omega. Extermination proceeding without incident. No problems to report."**

"Extermination?!" Rouge yelled back. "This is a recon mission, Omega! You can't go making a big scene!"

Shadow just snarled as he made his way through enemy territory. "Why am I not surprised..." he definitively mumbled to himself, as he had left the microphone on his communication device off.

 **"Unknown hostile encountered! Rouge, come in! Position coordinates lost! Current location unknown!"**

This time, the hedgehog activated his microphone before going off in reference to the usually trusty battlebot. "See, I told you," he nonchalantly retorted.

Rouge sighed in defeat. "Be on the lookout, Shadow."

"You be careful yourself," he replied, recounting the numerous times his partner had gotten into trouble, especially during her jewel-hunting days.

"I won't let you down."

The hedgehog scoffed, for knowing his luck, she would likely find something she didn't need and stir up yet another mess.

I spoke too soon again, didn't I?

"Shoot, I've been spotted! Shadow, I'm under attack. Requesting backup. Hurry!"

"Hold your ground, Rouge. I'm on my way."

"Whoa. What is that? No, wait! Shadow, HELP!"

"Rouge! What's going on over there?"

The only response he could make out was a short round of frantic screaming, soon muffled by an ambient woosh sound growing louder and louder until it ceased almost instantaneously.

"Rouge! Are you there? What just happened?"

No answer.

"Rouge! Do you copy?!"

Dead silence... apart from Shadow's now visible shaking.

"Ugh, such a troublemaker!"

 **"This is E-123 Omega. All sensors offline. Damage to parietal lobe region."**

 _Stuff and nonsense_ , Shadow thought to himself over and over.

 **"Casualty report: Rouge fallen. Shadow to be eliminated!"**

"Oh, damn it all!" Shadow blurted, the sudden gravity of his predicament finally catching up to him. "Omega, where are you? What's going on over there? Respond!"

 **"Unidentified system intrusion. Initiating emergency withdrawal! I am E-123 Omega, the most powerful..."**

The only noise that followed was a series of beeps and boops, similar to launching a dial-up Internet connection.

"Huh," Shadow mumbled again, "it seems Eggman had this place protected after all..."

The hedgehog pulled out his wristwatch, which was meant to display the exact locations of his allies, a required feature consequent to working for the government, the only reason he understood what recon was. This time, he found nothing. Both Omega and Rouge were now lost.

He fidgeted with the touch screen on his watch, which somehow allowed him to keep his gloves on. He configured the map on the watch to display the coordinates corresponding to Omega at its last point before disappearing.

"So that must be where he was when he was attacked..."

When he reached this location, Shadow found, as predicted, the non-functional E-Series robot, or at least, a pile of damaged robot parts that had previously taken the form of the robot. Unquestionably, someone had to have destroyed him. But who? And how?

Shadow stopped almost immediately in his tracks to discover a dark figure standing — no, _floating_ — right in front of him. This figure was wearing over his unsightly face a metallic-colored helmet, a pair of unusually large divots protruding atop said helmet to give room for his ginormous animal ears. A set of holes shaped in a similar style as a lightning bolt were meant to reveal his supposed eyes, although only his left eye was visible in a hot reddish glow, for his right eye was covered completely — maybe he used it for something else. One could easily notice a certain mysterious glowing gemstone attached to the front of his body, directly below his mask. One with a particularly keen eye could make out on his onyx-shaded gloves a black-and-white logo displaying a slightly modified symbol representing the mathematical concept of infinity — a crucial clue to the identity of this figure — with a sharp point, like the tip of a pencil, implanted into one side of the logo.

"Who are you?" the hedgehog shot first — yet in truth, he recognized this figure from the fresh coat of fur in a similar color to his own, the silver mane resting behind him, and the long tail that still appeared to be slightly crooked. The jackal who had no business showing his face ever again. This time, he was surrounded by a phantom-like glow of a deep red hue, appearing to absorb the light near him, possibly giving one the impression that he could bend physics.

"So much for being the world's most powerful robot..." the masked jackal mumbled out loud, a modchip from his helmet distorting his voice.

 _Whatever_ , Shadow snarled. _If he wants to dodge my questions, that's his problem._ "What did you do to Omega?"

"You just saw it..."

"What did you do to Rouge?!"

"My my, you ask a lot of questions..."

"I must say, it's quite cowardly of you to wear that mask everywhere you go..."

The masked figure floated still without making so much as a peep and stared harder into Shadow's soul, the glass eye on his helmet glowing brighter. Somehow, the hedgehog figured he would have put up more of a fuss than this. Nonetheless, he spontaneously charged at the jackal as promised, doing a quick teleportation such that he was suddenly behind the masked figure, ready to strike.

"Nope."

The figure spontaneously moved a length away as Shadow was about to swing a fist at him, so quickly and with such little warning that the hedgehog couldn't react in time to save himself from whiffing anyway, causing him to stumble and sending him tumbling to the ground in an awkward fashion, further stunning him from getting back up right away. This provided for the masked jackal a crucial opportunity. With little hesitation, the onyx-furred, floating figure waved his dark-gloved hands in front of him, channeling the blood-red stone glowing on his bust, seeming to "create" a mystical orb of the ruby's unspeakable power, defined by a series of little red cubes, about a decimeter in edge length, just floating around everywhere, emitting a peculiar "warping" noise that might remind one of what overdriven dubstep would sound like. Exactly of what this gem was supposed to do, even he wasn't sure at first... but he was sure to find out soon enough.

Not giving a moment to ponder its potential, he waved his menacing hands towards Shadow to effectively "shove" the ruby's energy in the face of the ebony-flavored hedgehog. As he backed up instantaneously to avoid the ensuing blast, the spherical orb suddenly grew massively in radius as it engulfed the troublemaker within itself, hovering around his general area for a few seconds before dissipating for good. In the aftermath of the blast, all was quiet where the black pincushion had been. As for Shadow, he was nowhere to be found, as far as the eye could see.

"This is quite fun," Infinite chuckled to himself.

"Infinite!" a loud, agitated voice cackled through his communication device. It could only have been the mustachioed doctor. "Where are you?! Did you get rid of Sonic yet?!"

Ordinarily, he would've had no clue who this Sonic was. Luckily, the mad scientist on the other end had informed the jackal everything there was to know about the famous blue hedgehog prior to sending his minion into the city to find Sonic dead or alive.

"Listen, Doctor," the masked jackal shouted back, seeing that there was now no one around to hear his rambling, "what made you think he'd be here to begin with?" Indeed, he had searched through every hidden nook and cranny of this surprisingly quiet metropolis but failed to find a hair of strikingly bright blue. "Anyway, I got rid of Shadow..."

"That black hedgehog is the _least_ of our priorities!" the increasingly agitated doctor interrupted.

"I mean, he is _now_..."

Eggman growled ferociously. "Listen here, Infinite. You are to find that pesky little blue pincushion and bring him back to me! I'll handle him..."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm on it..." the onyx-furred figure sighed through the doctor's rambling, reaching to a red button on his wristwatch and depressing it, rendering the communication from the other end inaudible for the moment.

"And one more thing..." the device suddenly turned back on to play more of the doctor's message — he had overridden it to bypass being shut off. "Don't come back to me without him."

"Whatever."

* * *

As Shadow came to his senses, he found that he was now indeed nowhere near the city. He looked around for one hot minute, noticing nothing but a bright and colorful atmosphere littered with shuttle loops as far as the eye could see.

"What the... where am I?"

Littering the rest of his surroundings was a series of floating dark red cubes moving in a conveniently practical pattern, blocking the handily straight paths extending either direction. Their trypophobic movements reminded Shadow of video game glitches. Their phantom-like red glow also seemed reminiscent to the strange aura emitted by that masked figure who had sent him here to begin with. By that knowledge, the hedgehog concluded that these floating cubes were dangerous. The further he explored the area, the more the glitch-like energy started to pile up on him. It seemed like an endless glitch.

"How did I end up here...?"

Before he could ponder an answer to his own question, his communication device suddenly blared a barrage of commotion coming from a voice that was all too familiar to him.

"Shadow?" the voice pegged. It was a surprisingly feminine voice, one that he'd last heard about five minutes ago. "Shadow? Shadow! Do you copy?!"

"Rouge?" Shadow moaned, clearly still not feeling like himself. "Is that you?"

"Get it together, Shadow! We were going to pick up Omega, remember?"

Omega. It all came back to him.

"Where are you?" he snarled. "What happened to you when you ran into... that guy?"

"What guy? What are you talking about?"

"You know, I heard you screaming frantically five minutes ago, remember? What did he..."

"Five minutes ago I was waiting for you to snap out of it!" Rouge snapped. Then in a slightly more calming tone, she continued after a brief moment of speechlessness from Shadow, "Nothing happened to me, Shadow. Don't be silly."

"Whatever," Shadow grumbled. "I don't see any sign of Omega anywhere. I imagine you're closer to where he was destroyed."

"Omega was never destroyed, silly!" Even though the wording suggested otherwise, Rouge sounded to be losing her patience.

"Yes he was..."

 **"Negative,"** interrupted the E-Series robot in question. **"I have never known d-d-de-defeat!"**

"No!" Shadow lashed out. He had just heard Omega getting served a can of metallic whoopass five minutes prior. Now he was hearing the robot's rambling all over again through his wristwatch?

The hedgehog was at a loss for words. What kind of twisted reality had he been sent to?

 **"You can never defeat me. You hit like a bitch. You hit like a bitch. You hit like a bitch..."**

Nothing made sense anymore.

Shadow fingered through the settings on his wristwatch. As he set the device to display the coordinates of his allies, he realized once again that Omega and Rouge were nowhere to be found. However, he did find one solitary dot — situated far, far away from where he figured he was. Nowhere near the city, for sure.

He pushed the precise area on the screen where the dot was to reveal more information on its identity. Only his contact list could be found this way, so the chances were high it was someone he knew. He was less than enthused to discover that it was Sonic the Hedgehog — his biggest rival in every sense of the word, and as such they weren't exactly on the friendliest of terms. Not to mention it was the Blue Blur himself, which alone secretly made him jealous, even if no one seemed to notice or indeed care. On the other hand, Sonic was his last hope to make sure he wasn't losing his marbles.

Shadow cautiously pushed the "call" button, and immediately he could see the dynamic surroundings of the blue hedgehog as he ran. He couldn't tell he was being paged, so Shadow had to get his attention.

"Sonic... uh, do you have a moment?"

"Shadow!" was his lively reply. "Long time no see! What's going down, partner?"

"I don't know where I am, but I sense trouble brewing in the city. I mean, I was just there, and I overheard Omega getting destroyed, and Rouge just disappeared altogether..."

Sonic was silent during his nerve-wracked rival's rambling, save for the pattering sound of his footsteps. Either he was being surprisingly attentive or constantly distracted.

"I figure you're much closer than I am, so, could you... you know... head over there and see what's going on?"

"Way ahead of you, Shadow," Sonic snickered. "I just got a ring from Tails about the same situation."

"Oh, thank chromium," Shadow instinctively muttered, sighing heavily in relief. That was Sonic, alright.

"Apparently he's already there as we speak, in a close encounter with some of that Egghead's robots..."

Shadow grumbled a bit. He remembered that the two-tailed fox in question had a recent history of getting himself into trouble and consistently depending on a fast hedgehog to bail him out, but as far as both he and Sonic were concerned, that meant Tails wasn't believing enough in himself — nowhere close.

"Listen Sonic, I'm going to try to meet up with you there..."

"Way past cool!" beamed the Blue Blur. "See you around, Shadow!"

Shadow continued sheepishly, knowing that his rival had already hung up on him, "as soon as I can find my way out of this... twisted... whatever it is..."

Meanwhile Sonic had just left Green Hill Zone and would reach the city within a minute. By that point the miniature army of battlebots had already laid waste to the downtown area and were preparing to pounce on the aforementioned Tails, who in turn was helping the local residents attempt to escape. At least, that was his intent. One could picture how anxious the citizens were getting on account of the brainiac fox's unsure way of handling this dire situation.

When at last their savior in bright blue appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, to effortlessly put every last robot out of commission for good, the reactions from every onlooking citizen, especially Tails, were filled with reassurance and comfort. Per Sonic's understandably cautious inquiry, the twin-tailed hero was happy to chime in that nobody was hurt, while mentioning in a frank tone that the Blue Blur's fashionably late timing was "cutting it kind of close".

"Yeah, that's pretty much how I roll," was his somewhat sheepish reply. "Now, has Eggman been around here lately?"

The young fox shook his head. "No, I haven't seen him around here, believe it or not."

"Huh," Sonic stroked his quills in confusion, "so it was a remote attack, I see..."

"It's awfully strange," Tails concurred. "I can't imagine he'd do something like that without..."

His thought was interrupted by a whole new barrage of attacks, starting with the whole crowd suddenly being surrounded by a mystic, dark red glow characterized by that warping noise, something you might hear in a 16-bit video game made in today's era. As the phantom-like effects dissolved, our heroes were stupefied to see a very peculiar set of enemies appearing in front of them, as if from thin air. Sonic took one peek at the giant red monster, the precarious water being, and the shady robot resembling his likeness, recognizing them all instantly.

 _Wait a minute_ , he muttered to himself. _What are they all doing here at the same time? I thought Zavok fell into some lava, and Chaos... unless..._

Then Sonic noticed that each figure in front of him was experiencing that same glitchy effect, just oozing with a power he'd never seen before. Were they being mind-controlled? Nonetheless, upon studying the three menacing beings before him for two seconds, he managed to put two and two together.

 _So Eggman's definitely here somewhere_ , the quick-thinking hedgehog concluded.

His thought process was brushed aside when he noticed another dark figure showing up in front of him, this one appearing from a brick sidewalk leading to the city square. He stopped at an equal distance away from Sonic and the other three baddies, the three parties perched in a scalene triangular formation.

"Shadow!" the blue streak exclaimed. "Boy, am I glad to..." he stopped mid-sentence after noticing that the ebony hedgehog before him was also glitching out, "see you..."

Without hesitation, Shadow lunged towards an utterly confused Sonic, positioning his roller-blade shoes in front of him for a kicking attack, which the cobalt champion swiftly swerved to avoid.

"What's the meaning of all this?!" Sonic peppered towards no one in particular.

A short moment later, Sonic would get his answer. Before anyone in the scene thought to make another move, yet another dark figure casually floated down in between Sonic and the band of baddies, with Shadow now standing menacingly beside them. This was the same jackal character donning the metallic mask serving a twofold purpose, channeling the powers of the mysterious gemstone protruding from his chest, seeming to bend the light around him, his fluffy white mane and long crooked tail flowing seamlessly behind him.

 _This has to be the ringleader_ , was Sonic's last thought before launching an attack of his own at the masked assailant. Instead, the jackal zoomed instantaneously a length to his right, avoiding this attack by a hair.

"Huh?"

"Whoa," the fox interjected watching the scene play out, "this guy is faster than Sonic? Well, not that I've never seen anything of the sort..."

As he pulled out his trusty multi-purpose electronic tablet to scan the masked creature, hoping he would discover crucial details about the unknown assailant, still _another_ dark figure rushed into the now crippled downtown area, coming in from the opposite end from whence the glitchy Shadow had appeared. Risking getting beaten off his guard by the physics-bending villain, Sonic fixated his view towards this new dark-furred creature, absolutely surprised by what he saw.

"Another Shadow?!"

From another glance, he quickly recognized this Shadow to be the true, antiheroic Ultimate Lifeform, but on this cue, he was struck from behind by a blast of the Phantom Ruby's dark energy. Being the heralded Blue Blur, this merely stunned him.

"Looks like we've got out hands full," the ebony hedgehog bellowed in support of the temporarily maimed cobalt hero, before lunging at the masked creature to launch another failed attack. This time he rebounded in time to land a roundhouse kick on his evil clone. A still image depicting his attack upon impact would reveal a slight difference between the two Shadows, perhaps the most notable being that the color of the true Shadow's eyes was less defined. In any event, Chaos 0, Zavok, and the metallic Sonic robot had now joined the fight, setting the stage for a brief round of outright chaos.

Meanwhile, the young fox was still hanging in the background, staring helplessly at the jumbled up information presented to him from his tablet, touching the screen multiple times in a panicked frenzy in failed attempts to unscramble these deceptive readings, or otherwise make sense of them. It seemed this masked assailant was a mystery even to technology. Now vulnerable to being massively misguided from his state of panic, the technologically advanced fox was struck with the idea to distract the other three glitched-up villains such that the two heroic hedgehogs could focus their attacks solely on this mysterious masked jackal.

"Tails, don't!"

Before the young fox could enter the fray, Infinite initiated a brand new, never-before-seen attack, shockingly freezing both Sonic and Shadow into place, allowing both Zavok and Metal Sonic to land a string of their own unanswered punches and kicks on the helpless hedgehogs until they both went down for the count.

"Sonic, no!"

Meanwhile, with Tails now caught in the middle of the fight, Chaos lunged slowly but surely towards the paranoia-stricken young fox, his relapsing PTSD channeling his emotional instability to the point of corrupting his mental prowess such that he never snapped into fight-or-flight mode; he simply backed away just as slowly from the water monster until there was no more room for him to run.

Infinite was very pleased with himself. By this point he was well aware that the good-natured residents of the city were very capable of holding him off — he had learned not to underestimate them — but now they were the ones that were outnumbered.

With the Phantom Ruby in his control, the menacing jackal soon understood that his power truly was limitless. Knowing that he had the upper hand above them, he would intimidate them further, directing his next few lines to the dejected locals — at least they were still listening.

 _These pathetic fools didn't stand a chance  
_ _They went after me, but I crushed them like ants  
_ _It took a while for me to call this battle won  
_ _But now your greatest heroes are officially done  
_ _Clearly I'm not here just to strike fear in you  
_ _Taking over the world is what I'm here to do  
_ _Now the game is up for you, live with it  
_ _You can never stop me — I am infinite!_

"By the way," he continued, this time directing it towards no one in particular, seeming to stare deeply into camera 2, "my debut rap album _Infinite_ is out now. Good luck finding it on iTunes."

The masked jackal then laughed maniacally for what seemed like forever. In typical comedic fashion, he only stopped to cough repeatedly after his voice became sore.

As an endless line of glitched-up minions were now rising out of the ground, Infinite's dark-red, reverse-like glow was growing more massive, giving off the subtle clue that these events were deeply connected.

Without either Sonic or Shadow to stop them, the villains were now capturing every last terrified resident of the city... except for Chaos, who was still dealing with a horrendously paranoid Tails, cowering in a corner in the hopeless hope for a miracle.

"Sonic, help mmpf..."

By the sound of his voice getting muffled from the water monster absorbing his body, there was no helping him now.

Needless to say, it would be the last time he ever shouted these words.


	3. In the End

"There is no reason to resist. Your savior is no more."

It was a day covered in thick clouds, dampening the visibility to just under ten kilometers, coyly resembling an opening cutscene taken out of the latest action RPG.

An army of robots, among the same group of baddies that had taken down Sonic and Shadow, was now terrorizing a small rural area of Mazuri. They had just destroyed the conversely urban center of the city, a place not known for its technological advancement.

Infinite watched on with pleasure as every inhabitant of the city either ran around in a frenzy or gave into fear.

"It would be senseless to try, anyway..."

Of course, it didn't matter what kind of resistance these terrified civilians bothered to put up, as the masked menace channeled his dark energy to effortlessly decimate fixed structures ranging from tourist-friendly statues to towering skyscrapers, scattering the hopeless townsfolk conveniently towards his robots, assigned to capture the living; through the evil doctor's mastermind plan, powered by his state-of-the-art technology, they too would be turned into robots. Anyone who perished from this devastating onslaught — the numbers in this department reached staggering heights — well, they were dead.

As the robots were making off back to their base with their prey, Infinite relished in the aftermath of his offensive... again. The same all-powerful feeling returned to him in a rush, compelling him to keep it going in an area he hadn't been yet. A neighboring suburb would become his next target...

"What's this I smell?"

Infinite became distracted for the moment. He followed the source of this outlying stench to the remains of one collapsed building in particular. The magnitude of this rubble suggested that many working-class civilians had lived here. Of course, he had witnessed a gross quantity of them evacuate to try to fight him, but to no avail. A whiff of bloody carcasses was not enough to cloud that smell...

"Can't you smell that smell?"

Ooh, that smell. Someone was definitely alive, hidden underneath the site of mass destruction. That someone, a gargantuan fellow smothered in ash and dust, remained deathly quiet. He likely benefited from the dullness of his fur, allowing him to blend in with the ruins of a once-populated landmark of rural Mazuri.

"I know you're in there," the bad guy bellowed in his trademark ominous tone, in the direction of all that rubble. "I can taste your terror..."

As expected, no echo was to be heard. This particular someone was either too terrified indeed to move a muscle, or perhaps barely clinging to life, physically unable to let anything out.

"All that anxiety and doubt..."

Infinite let out a giant smirk, a sign that would've been telling enough of his violent nature if not for that metallic helmet covering his face.

"It's delicious."

A feeling of pity for the poor soul came in the form of a quick rush, a slight jolt, to the former mercenary. He whipped up a quick burst of the cursed stone's power and flung it towards the scattered mess in front of him, at which point all the precariously perched shards of the destroyed structure suddenly came crashing down on the unsuspecting figure already hanging on by a thread — truly a devastating blow to whatever was left of him.

Confident in that he had neutralized this relatively empty threat, Infinite snickered ever so slightly, surrounded by ashes where a somewhat iconic village had once been. Looking closely at his tightly clenched left fist, one could make out locked into his onyx glove a rusty amulet pendant dangling from a simply designed necklace, which he had picked up from within the rubble, a telling memorial of the last lifeless creature as he lay buried underneath.

 _Who is left to face me with a sliver of fight?_  
 _If you stepped in the ring, you'd shiver in fright_  
 _So this ought to put you out of your misery_  
 _Your city, your hero, and now you are history_  
 _When it all began, I quickly became notorious_  
 _When it's all said and done, I will be victorious_  
 _Because I have the power; you've been hit with it_  
 _Nobody will ever stop me — I am infinite!_

"I need to cut that out," the appropriately-named monster lamented as he scurried away from the scene, his mind all but set on his next set of victims. "It's not like my lyrical ability allows me to verbally abuse my opponents. Maybe in an alternate universe..."

For a moment he briefly contemplated the few record sales his eponymous debut rap album had actually achieved by this point. More likely than not, that figure was equivalent to a certain number that served as a mortifying reminder of who he once was.

"Oh, what am I talking about?!" he lamented, gesturing a facepalm on his mask.

With this quick dismissal, the bad guy ran off, his business not close to finished, turning his fluffy tail towards the decimation behind him. In the blink of a 35mm camera lens, Infinite was gone, leaving the scene to either burn in his fury, or otherwise just sit there, giving off the lasting impression of a post-apocalyptic world to the outsider taking in its foul atmosphere. One might have anticipated this tourist to have the look of a photographer on assignment, only so urgent based on the area's mass desolation as far as the eye could see.

The only thing that might have been out of this visitor's sight was a sudden jolt from within the rubble — it was the outlying figure, having survived the onslaught, but now wheezing heavily and in a sizable deal of pain after the towering structure had collapsed in on him too. He was lucky, however — having lived on the lowest floor of the complex, he had evaded much of the brute force that would have otherwise rendered him just another statistic. It didn't matter much that he was choking on the foul funk of bloody corpses all around him, the only way he knew they were there. Feeling a burned patch of fur on his right forearm for a moment, the creature struggled through razor-like chunks of concrete and gold, his towering stature only inhibiting his progress, as he meanwhile battled mangled bodies, a sharp blurriness in his left eye, and not exactly being able to locate the dimly shining light of a cloudy day from down there.

At last he pried himself into the open, revealing his presence as a scarlet-furred hedgehog, a piece of fake-looking mauve hair flowing down his face in any direction, his Goliath-like size not much apparent with nobody to whom to compare him. A bevy of holes and scratches occupied his sleek set of ebony-flavored sweatpants, as the burned patches of his fur were like dead spots of a poorly-maintained lawn. Even his parted hair had been ruthlessly leveled such that the bystanding camera guy might have confused him for a highly controversial, uber-made-up industrial rock musician.

What an oddity it seemed to this dazed hedgehog that a massive blaze was torching the dimly-lit, cloudy sky. Pondering whether he was truly alone, he shot quick gazes all around him, either to see if Infinite was hiding there, ready to ambush him, or in case another cowardly fellow would reveal himself should the assailant have truly fled the scene of desolation. Even after about eight seconds of nobody showing one's own unsightly face, he was still consumed by a sense of imminent danger, especially since he figured one of the many directions in which he could've fled might have easily led him down the path already taken by the monster that had just been here, straight into his clutches.

At the mention of this villain, his voice lingered in the hedgehog's train of thought — somewhere, in the back of his head, he was all too familiar with that voice, a peculiar noise he could easily make out through whatever the device was used to distort it — not the ideal way to disguse it, as far as he was concerned. But then again, even he could not be any less oblivious to the thought that this figure tried to kill him in the most destructive way ever — now was certainly not the time to be fighting back.

As he aimlessly wandered, he heard a crinkling noise from beneath his starkly metallic shoes. Stopping in his tracks, he reached one of his chrome-plated gloves to pick up a stray slip of paper, coated with a coded mess of jumbled words calling for action by "to whom it may concern" — these guys were looking for any help they could get. The hedgehog remembered, of course, having read a breaking news story regarding the capture of not one, but two of the world's most renowned heroes.

Finally it sank into him: this could only mean war.

The team that distributed this flyer was likely hoping to get several responses from the understandably panicked citizens before Eggman reached their grounds to take them over with little effort. What did he want the whole world for, anyway? For all the disgruntled hedgehog cared, every little ploy of his seemed to have everything to do with getting rid of the Blue Blur once and for all. But now that Sonic was under his control anyway, for the mad doctor to proceed to demolish everything in his path, that was going a little overboard.

A strange whirring noise echoed from within his pant pockets. He remembered that he had also picked up a peculiar gemstone of his own that seemed to react at first grasp. Its capabilities far unknown to him, it might at least have made a good keepsake. Or maybe he'd accidentally trigger something at random without him knowing. Somehow, the hedgehog started to feel a sense of comfort, that he was being protected in some way.

Instinctively nodding in regards to this urgent flyer, the hedgehog folded the flimsy piece of paper twice, stuffed it in his pocket, and went on his merry way.

* * *

"How did we end up here?"

"How did it get to be this way?"

"How can we turn the tide now?"

In a secret underground base concealed somewhere in the city, these were just a few of the agitated questions tossed around. This rag-tag team of unlikely heroes seemed unenthusiastically meager at best, but they were the only ones standing as they had camped out here for the month that had followed Sonic's devastating capture, but since they hadn't heard anything from Eggman or indeed the monster that had neutralized the once-invincible blue streak, the villains must have ceased their bounty hunt, satisfied with the massive auxiliary support they had gained by any means necessary.

"Well, I at least have you guys..."

One of these freaks, a large, jade-scaled crocodile noted for his work as a private investigator, chimed in with his own sentimental thought, even if it felt out of place for the situation at hand.

"Get it together, Vector," a mauve-flavored chameleon snapped in a surprisingly deep tone. "We've been hoping for a miracle for the last month or so..."

He softly pounded a clenched fist on the random boardroom table chilling within the base quarters.

"But I'm afraid we'll have to make our own miracle."

"What about those flyers we sent out?" an enthusiastic youngster piped in. This was the child that sometimes got on the nerves of his peers for obvious reasons, but had been undeniably valuable to the Chaotix all that time.

"We tried that, Charmy," Vector remarked. "What good will it do us to send out more now?"

"I just had the thought that someone might have picked it up..."

"Where's Knuckles, anyway?" the feisty croc interrupted.

"He went on a supply run, remember?" another voice shouted from the back of the room, towards the commotion that was unfolding within that little circle around the table.

All three stopped to surprisingly effortlessly turn their heads towards this disrupting figure. At the sight of the armadillo sitting alone against the wall, they all looked back and forth at each other in excruciating discomfort.

"Oh yeah, that's right," Vector grumbled. "That was kind of embarrassing... Espio, do you know how long he's been out for?"

"Oh geez..." mumbled the chameleon as he took a quick gaze at the analog clock hanging above a complex information screen, its hands revolving ever so slowly across the increasing numbers. "I know he left this morning..."

"It's mid-afternoon now," the croc continued to groan. "I'm getting hungry..."

"Well good luck finding a place to grab a bite..." the armadillo blurted again. As if on cue, the three baffled creatures around the table gave another funny look towards him. It was as though none of them recognized him or knew what he was doing here, perched so far away from the commotion.

A metallic door leading to the ever dangerous outside world slid open by itself, revealing something of an ominous presence to the remaining deliquents: their commander, a buff, deep crimson-hued echidna famous for his gigantic mitts with the outer knuckles protruding from them.

"Have you got any good news for us, Knuckles?" Espio inquired coldly, folding his arms, expectant of a deeply concerning answer.

"Sure, you're still alive," the echidna retorted back. "But from what I hear, Eggman's forces have just decimated the rest of the world."

"You don't mean...?" Charmy quivered.

"They've leveled every regional capital... hell, the Empire Bowl's gone too."

After hearing that perhaps the most iconic sports stadium and concert venue in all of Mobius had been demolished, Espio and Vector could be seen clenching their fists in a rage ready to be unleashed.

"Hold your impending rampage, guys," the echidna sputtered.

"Why, is there hope for us?" Charmy interrupted in an increasingly ecstatic tone. "Did we finally get a new recruit?!"

Overwhelmed by the agitated chatter he was witnessing, the echidna shook his head lightly, directing this gesture towards nothing in particular.

"Alright, since I see you're all so anxious, I'll bring him out now."

"Really?" the three older deliquents reacted in unison. Charmy was left to fly around the base in circles while doing flips in the air and making unintelligible giddy noises. Meanwhile, on the echidna's cue, the same metallic blockade usually guarding the exit into the open gave way to reveal their new recruit. As the curious, clearly banged-up figure made his way to congregate with the remaining subjects at the center of the room, some of them did a double take when they were presented with a close-up of him standing near the seemingly unsuspecting echidna — the scarlet-furred creature's towering presence made him appear nearly a full head taller.

"Obviously he's been through a lot, so I'd go easy on him for now, alright," Knuckles muttered quickly to the rest of the party, the hedgehog finally in a proximity that emitted the impression that he was preparing to deliver a short speech. Instead, the echidna continued, "This is Zenith the Hedgehog... our newest recruit. I might have cooked up some kind of initiation ritual for him, but clearly we've got bigger things to worry about..."

Zenith's face was a cold, expressionless stare that didn't seem to know where to fixate itself. Indeed, it was an uncomfortable sight for the onlooking veterans to behold, not wanting to be caught looking back at him, even Vector, the only identity in the room with a noticeable size advantage over the new guy.

"Anyway, guys," the echidna continued, "is there anything you'd like to ask Zenith at this time?"

Following this prompt, Knuckles leaned up to the red giant and whispered, "I'll help you out here, ok?"

Prompted by the few open-ended inquiries from the rest of the party, and with the echidna's pledged assistance, Zenith briefly described his catastrophic experience in his home location, as well as his brief encounter with the masked assailant judging only from his metallic-warped, baritone voice, without any recollection of his unsightly appearance. As the hedgehog elaborated, the other subjects could easily infer by his constant stuttering and lack of eye contact that he felt strangely uncomfortable here.

"Anyway," Knuckles interrupted, putting an end to this makeshift press conference, "we better get a move on here. We've all got friends in need of rescue, and I've no doubt they'll be of valuable assistance..."

"So what's the plan?" Espio muttered, folding his arms again. "Is that our first course of action?"

"Of course," the echidna replied in a confident tone. "That's what Sonic would have done, anyway."

He then lost his train of thought to peek below him at every angle, clearly looking for something.

"That's weird. I know I had some extra gear lying around somewhere."

"You mean this gadgety thingy?" the crimson hedgehog shot, suddenly holding a silver-plated grappling hook in his dominant right hand. His tone spoke of a thick Mazurite origin, a clear immigrant tell to the veterans, most of whom had lived in or near this general area their whole lives.

"Yeah, that's it," Knuckles confirmed. "Huh, I thought I was going crazy."

"We've all gone crazy already," the armadillo in the back of the room blurted yet again.

Only the hedgehog, out of all the disinterested subjects within the operating quarters, turned his head a whole 180 degrees towards the intruder, but he still uttered not a word in response — he simply glanced menacingly; maybe this would've finally put Mighty the Armadillo in his place.

"Anyway," the hedgehog chimed in, "what about Sonic, now?"

"The monster that did him in," Knuckles started, then paused in deep contemplation, hanging his head low. He sighed heavily and continued, "Sonic was outnumbered in that battle. If we want to take back the world, we'll need all the auxiliary support we can get... and that starts by saving everyone else."

He then muttered softly, more or less to himself, "Hopefully none of them are dead, too..."

Before he could finish that thought, Zenith reiterated, this time more clearly enunciated, "But what about Sonic?"

"Sonic is not with us, Zenith," the lavender-flavored chameleon bellowed in sullen dismissal.

"Then why don't we rescue his arse!"

The sheer urgency, the snappy aftertaste of the dullish-red-furred creature's exasperated retort left simultaneous expressions of disbelief over everyone's face. Even the hedgehog, now pacing his breathing in a heavy, huff-and-puff manner, was now conveying an emotion in his own face that appeared remorseful in the slightest over his uncalled-for outburst.

"He's dead, Zen," the buff crocodile finally replied sheepishly and just shrugged. "There's just no way he would've survived that onslaught. Not after everything we've heard about it."

"No," Zenith remarked back, "Sonic hasn't been killed yet, otherwise everyone would know it for damn sure, don't you think?"

"Whoa, calm down, dude," Vector suggested, raising both his hands beside him and walking away ever slightly.

"No, Sonic is out there. From what I understand, Sonic and Shadow were both captured a month ago, right, and I for one think rescuing them would be an invaluable help to your — our cause..."

"I hope you're being serious with us, Zenith," the echidna interrupted amid the emotionally charged hedgehog's rambling as he folded his arms too. "The whole rest of the world is now a danger zone, so we'd have to be pretty sure of where Sonic and Shadow are first."

As everyone else nodded, Vector added, "Yeah, how do we know where he's holding them, anyway?"

"Um..." Zenith hesitated, allowing a mere second for his own train of thought to catch up to him, "Eggman's got the Death Egg, of course..."

"I thought we destroyed that big hunk of space junk," Knuckles contemplated.

"Oh, you did. He just finished rebuilding it."

"Again?!"

At this remark, Zenith's patience began to wear quite thin, having made his own conclusion that nobody else in the room seemed at all technologically or contemporarily learned. He then remembered there was a relatively young, twin-tailed fox associated with this lovely bunch that definitely fit both these qualities, and he began to contemplate where he might have been when these guys may have needed him the most.

"Here, I guess I'll have to show you," the hedgehog finally sighed, reaching into the pocket on his left. Seeing a dark red glow and hearing a strange ambient noise where he was expecting a responsive signal from an uber-trendy 10 cm smartphone, the flustered hedgehog immediately realized he had picked the wrong one of his sweatpant pockets.

As he was about to put away the gemstone emitting these peculiar effects, Knuckles barged in: "Stop! What's that you've got there?"

"What, this?" the hedgehog muttered uncomfortably, taking out the highly reflective jewel for everyone to see.

"Yeah. Where'd you get that?"

He gazed awkwardly at his stone and simply replied, "I just found it..."

"Weird, that's definitely not a Chaos Emerald... did you get that from the monster that took down Sonic?"

"No, it was just on the ground and I just picked it up..." Zenith's response had something of a defensive tone, like a little child about to be punished for going places where he didn't belong.

"Wait, the monster has that same kind of jewelry?" Espio inquired, slightly confused by the sudden dialogue.

"I don't know, it was just a thought," the echidna confessed. "Zenith, can I see that jewel?"

He stretched out the knuckled mitt covering his right hand towards the befuzzled red giant, preparing to handle this dark weapon with utmost care. Zenith just stood there, leaving the echidna hanging for a good five seconds as he contemplated his options. As far as he was concerned, he wasn't exactly on a "buddy-buddy" level with anyone else in these quarters. As he pondered his decision, however, he contemplated the degree of trust he'd been earning from everyone in the room — likely more than he'd ever associated with back in Mazuri — all for having responded to a simple flyer. But of course he had to, for he had no business staying there in its leveled state.

He thought about all that was discussed in this meeting alone. The idea of rescuing close friends first stuck to him, at first in an unpleasant way. He remembered thinking to himself, _who needs friends?_ before rescuing Sonic had ever crossed his mind — at that moment, he was sure he didn't have any friends. As time would have it, Zenith now found himself in the company of a barrage of saps with whom he realized he was becoming increasingly comfortable, as if these were the friends he didn't know he needed. In addition, the voice of the monster he had encountered nagged in the back of his little red noggin — somehow he remembered this person from somewhere, but he was certainly nowhere to be found at the current moment. Whatever this item he was holding, he would give it up to find him and rekindle whatever lost relationship they may have had.

The red hedgehog finally obliged, carefully placing the demented stone into Knuckles's outstretched mitt, not letting go until he was sure the echidna had full control. In an instant, the constant whirring noise and dark red glow it was previously emitting began to slowly cease, like a record player gradually slowing down while still playing the music, until it stopped entirely, appearing to have frozen solid.

"Did you break it?" Vector stammered in slight awe.

"Um, I don't think so," the echidna muttered in short reply. He twice tapped his mitt on the cursed stone, but nothing happened.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Charmy added, nervously rubbing the back of his little head.

"Here, guys. This might be of some help to us."

Zenith watched in slight discomfort as the echidna passed the gem to Espio, who in turn allowed the remaining curious veterans to observe it in person. Through all this the weapon stayed deathly silent, refusing to blink to anyone's touch.

"Zenith, do you know how to activate this thing?" Espio inquired.

The hedgehog shrugged. "Haven't the faintest."

"Hmm," the chameleon contemplated further, "well it seemed to react to you holding it..."

He held the gem in front of his face for a while, eyeing it all over to see if, given that this was definitely not a Chaos Emerald, he could maybe find a hidden switch. Eventually he gave up and handed it back to the red giant. As he grasped the stone with his recessive left glove hand, there was once again an ethereal red glow accompanied by its ambient whirring tone.

"There it is again!" Knuckles exclaimed, taking a few steps back. Vector immediately followed suit, and soon everyone was huddled together on the other side of the table around which they had congregated, as far back away from Zenith, who simply stood on his own. The more he gazed at his otherworldly possession, the prospect of its potential power slowly began to sink into him. Truly he'd be the one to put it to good use.

"Well maybe it just likes you then, I don't know," Espio conceded, quickly slurring those last three words to a point at which it could be written out in just four letters. "You hold onto it for now, I guess."

"But maybe put the thing away," Vector stammered again. "We don't want you to cause a ruckus in here."

"Way ahead of you, pal," the hedgehog shot back, doing as told. "Anyway, I've been meaning to show you this..."

Now the hedgehog pulled out a handheld gadget of considerable technological capabilities, indeed marked by a 10 cm touch screen, notably branded with the logo of a popular fruit that had apparently been bitten into. He pressed his finger on a few key spots across the screen, after which a giant holographic diagram of the aforementioned spherical space base constructed by the evil Dr. Eggman popped out of the device for everyone to see.

"Is that Tails's phone ya got there?" Vector interjected in considerable awe.

"Who?" the hedgehog instinctively snapped. Only then had he processed the feisty croc's whole inquiry. "No, it's my phone."

"I didn't know cell phones could be that powerful..." Charmy lamented.

"But of course, everyone's been going mobile these days. Where have you been?"

The young, floating bee just scratched his head.

"Anyway," the hedgehog continued again, using both fingers on his touch screen to enlarge the hologram, showing several key areas of the Death Egg.

"Oh my God," Espio couldn't help but interject as he noticed something very peculiar in this diagram: "They're holding prisoners in there!"

All the other subjects suddenly found themselves captivated by this scene.

"Wait, no — they're robots?! They _are_ prisoners!"

"Is that Amy?!"

"Hold on, let me see — that _is_ Amy!"

"Well, that's one more thing that rotten Eggman will answer for."

As the commotion died down, the big red pincushion controlling the diagram twiddled his fingers some more over his phone, further adjusting the hologram's frame of reference until he hit the absolute central point of Eggman's base, wherein lay the big reveal that everyone within a light-year radius saw coming.

"Who's up for an old-fashioned jailbreak?"

All anyone else could think to do was celebrate wildly.


End file.
